This invention fits generally into the field of methods or systems used by fire stations for notifying firemen of emergency pages and which permit the firemen to respond to that page. More particularly, this invention is an automated emergency page notification system for firemen that alerts them of a radio page by cell phone text messaging which includes the page audio, allowing them to reply with a response status to a display screen at their fire station so that other personnel know who is responding.
Firefighters, fire chiefs, and fire department board trustees often wonder what the response is going to be on the next fire alarm. They wonder if anyone else is on the way to the fire station or the scene of the fire. They wonder if they should send out a dispatch tone from the fire department again. Should they go ahead and call mutual aid fire departments now? Who is responding to this run? Are they going to be the only one? This situation has happened countless times to firemen across the country. The invention described herein is a fire alarm text response system located at the subject fire station and designed to resolve some of the above uncertainties by providing better information to firemen about the response of other firemen to a fire alarm.
There are a number of fire alarm response systems already in existence which constitute prior art in regard to the present invention. Perhaps the closest prior art systems with respect to the present invention are the following systems: IamResponding, eDispatches, and ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier, which are described in their websites, respectively: Iamresponding.com, edispatches.com, and comtekk.com. However, there are major differences between the present invention and these prior art systems which will now be explained.
IamResponding does not include hardware with their system. Users of this system rely on their pagers to alert them of an emergency page. They then dial an 800 telephone number from any phone by essentially programming one button calling on a phone as autodial to respond to the system. IamResponding also is capable of interfacing with a fire department's E911 dispatch CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system where dispatchers send the type and location of fire information to the users' cell phones.
The present system to be described herein sends a text message automatically to the cell phones of users when the fire department's radio dispatch tones them out for an emergency. Users of the present system are sent a message with simple one letter response codes that indicate if they are responding to the fire station, responding to the scene, delayed, not responding, or just a test page. The present system also sends the actual audio of the dispatch page to the users' cell phones automatically as a multimedia audio attachment that the users can play back to hear the actual location and type of emergency. The present system does not interface with E911 systems and does not require any additional dispatcher steps because it detects the dispatch page tones on a radio receiver and alerts the users automatically.
IamResponding features a messaging announcement system for enhanced communications within a fire department or team (the present invention does this with what the present inventors call “Send Message), web-based scheduling (the present invention does not do this), apparatus status tracking (the present invention does not do this), expiration date tracking (the present invention does not do this), and an interactive calendar (the present invention does not do this).
IamResponding is a web-based system requiring no software or unique hardware located at a customer fire station. Customers of IamResponding enter all user information into a web server. The present system is a hardware and software based system located at the customer fire department's station and all user information is kept on the personal computer system at the customer's fire station
IamResponding is a web based system where users use their own computers to log into a web page to view responses at the fire station. Users can remain logged into the system and can, if desired, route the video to a larger screen in their fire station truck bay so that responding firemen can see the responses.
The present system includes a flat screen television with the complete system, a dedicated desktop personal computer system, and a radio alert receiver to pick up the page tones and dispatch audio. All department radio pages are recorded and playable anytime from the PC or through commands sent to it via a cell phone, plus the pages are date and time stamped when logged. The present system also plays the actual page audio on a loop through the flat screen TV and PC speakers after a dispatch page out automatically.
eDispatches supplies customers with a personal computer (no keyboard, monitor, or mouse) with a radio scanner. The PC system decodes the pager tones and sends an alert to the eDispatches servers along with the audio of the page. eDispatches then sends a text message to users showing an 800 telephone number for users to call. Users call the 800 number, then enter a PIN number and the system replays the actual audio of the page. The system also calls users entered into the system and then plays the actual audio of the page. If a user does not answer, the system leaves a voice message of the page audio on voicemail or answering machine. eDispatches also is capable of sending out text message announcements to all users in the system. eDispatches is mostly a web based system, as users information is stored on a web server, not at the fire station's PC.
The system presented herein stores all user information on the PC at the users' fire station. The present system sends a text alert and page audio directly from the PC system at the fire station. The present system sends a text message automatically to the cell phones of users when the fire department's radio dispatch tones them out for an emergency. Users are sent a message with simple one letter response codes that indicate if they are responding to the fire station, responding to the scene, delayed, not responding, or just a test page. The present system also sends the actual audio of the dispatch page to the users' cell phones automatically as a multimedia audio attachment that users can play back to hear the actual location and type of emergency. The present system does not interface with E911 systems and does not require any additional dispatcher steps because it detects the dispatch page tones on a radio receiver and alerts users automatically.
eDispatches also uses what they call “eDispatches CAD Relay System” by interfacing with a fire department's E911 CAD system to send type and location information to a user's cell phone via text messaging similar to IamResponding's interface. The present system is independent and does not need to interface with any CAD system. eDispatches' system includes what they call “Priority Blast”, which allows users to call in to the eDispatches system, leave a voice message, and it then calls all users with the recorded message. The present system does not do this. eDispatches does not display or accept the status response of a user. eDispatches customers can request an email log of pages and listen to the previous 24 hours of page audio only. The present system can store all page audio for playback anytime.
ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier is an autonomous email/SMS-MMS alert notification system triggered by any programmable single or 2-tone signal such as EAS, NOAA Weather, or fire alarm dispatch radio page. In this system, a small radio receiver is supplied with a computer program that is installed on the customer's own PC system. The system issues alerts on the fire department's radio dispatch tones and then sends out a text message to personnel that a tone was detected. This system also sends the audio of the page via email only for smart phones and mobile phones capable of receiving email with an audio attachment. ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier does not allow the customer or user any way to respond back to alert messages or display any response. ComTekk-SafAertNotifier does not send out the audio as a true MMS audio attachment to a cell phone that does not have email capability. ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier does store user information on the customer's PC at the fire station.
The system presented described herein stores all user information on the PC at the users' fire station like CommTekk-SafAlertNotifier. The present system sends a text alert and page audio directly from the PC system at the customer's fire station similarly to ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier. The present system sends out the page audio as a true MMS (Multimedia Message Service) type message to any cell phone regardless of whether that cell phone has email capability such as a smart phone or not.
The present system will send out page audio as an .mp3 file to any cell phone that has a multimedia package with their cell phone wireless provider. The present system will do this on a PC system running XP or Windows 7 operating systems. It is not possible to send a .wav file due to the large size of files generated to a regular cell phone unless that cell phone, usually a smart phone, is capable of receiving email with large attachments. In the present system, a typical audio attachment is an .mp3 and is only 375 kilobytes in size for 30 seconds of recorded page audio. A .wav file of this size, like the kind that ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier sends, would be approximately 5 megabytes or larger.
The present system sends a text message automatically to the cell phones of users when the fire department's radio dispatch tones them out for an emergency. Users are sent a message with simple one letter response codes that indicate if they are responding to the fire station, responding to the scene, delayed, not responding, or just a test page. The present system also sends the actual audio of the dispatch page to the users' cell phones automatically as a multimedia audio attachment that users can play back to hear the actual location and type of emergency. The present system does not interface with E911 systems and does not require any additional dispatcher steps because it detects the dispatch page tones on a radio receiver and alerts users automatically.
ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier can deal with stacked tones where a dispatch center will tone out fire departments back to back before they announce the emergency. This allows multiple fire departments to be toned at once and then the dispatcher only has to announce the emergency once. ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier must have a standard 1 second gap between fire department tones to work properly. The present system can detect any stacked tone regardless of type or gap. ComTekk-SafAlertNotifier is not capable of sending out special announcement messages like IamResponding, eDispatches, or the present system described herein.